Cynthia O’Brien

Ottawa, Ontario

When I was a kid and sleep evaded me, I would spend my time walking on the ceiling. My room was on the third floor of an old house and in my mind I could move across the ceiling, avoiding light fixtures, stepping over the lintel to the stairwell and slide down to the second floor, to move from room to room. This helps to look at space in a different way.

Sculptural slab work can be similar to my nightly walks. To look at space in a different way. It is all about the quiet of the interior space defined by the intricate exterior shell. In the Bertha Series the collar of the bowl moves the viewers eye or hand around the piece, following the lines and planes that make it sculptural. This collar or bertha, creates the safe place within, holding what the viewer most cherishes.